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Billed as the culmination of Marvel’s ten years of worldbuilding, Avengers: Infinity War lives up to that description in a way that’s consistently separated the MCU from other blockbusters. As ridiculous as this sounds for a film populated wall-to-wall by costumed heroes with somewhat silly “made-up names”, as one describes them, the ambitiously over-the-top effort works mostly due to the strong character work that’s preceded it.

Exponentially building on the original Avengers thrill of seeing the interplay between very different types of heroes, Infinity War wastes little time in creating clusters of characters who’ve shared no screen time before. Many of the film’s most crowd-pleasing moments come from combining these strangers who the audience is familiar with. It’s fun to watch them team up and try to out-macho one another, while gags are plentiful while remaining in the established MCU context (Dave Bautista’s Drax has never been funnier; Thor hasn’t lost his taste for a quip either; Tony Stark is, yeah, Tony Stark). Perhaps there’s a bit too much LOTR-style mini-questing that goes on, but that’s easy to accept when it keeps offering up previously unseen interplay.

As the MCU has evolved, its been consistently praised for its detours into sub-genres like spy flicks or cosmic comedy. The scale of the challenge faced by directors the Russo brothers to fuse these elements together in coherent fashion was arguably as difficult as juggling the dozens of characters featured. On both fronts they impress here. The film convincingly houses a range of tones and visual aesthetics, and constantly jumps between locations and characters in deceptively simple fashion.

One frequent problem with MCU villains has been that they’re one-note, or hampered by poorly realised CGI. That is 100% not the case with Josh Brolin’s Thanos, who takes centre stage. He’s a tangible, threatening,and most of all emoting presence, benefiting from an excellent Brolin performance and stunning mo-cap work that has often been absent from similar villains (including his underlings in this outing). If this film is anyone’s story, it’s that of Thanos, as we follow him on the impossible mission of bringing order to the universe against all odds.

Which brings us to the Infinity Stones. They’ve sometimes served as MacGuffins in the MCU, and, frankly, they are a bit ridiculous. Some characters treat them with reverence - like Doctor Strange, in whose standalone film an Infinity Stone served a defined purpose that is ongoing here. Others speak for the skeptical among the audience and call them out for being a bit silly. Like the latter characters, moviegoers should roll with it - it may seem an oversimplified plot mechanic, but as you will see, they carry very real consequences no matter how smug you are.

Infinity War certainly isn’t totally perfect, but it’s a damn fun time that rises to its challenge. And what about THAT ENDING.

NZ Herald (Dominic Corry)

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An impressive achievement in blockbuster movie-making. But there's no denying that, expectation-wise, the MCU is starting to look a little bit like a victim of its own success.

Okay, its not that the other were confusing but at least in this one it's not just a blur of action sequences and buildings/cities being destroyed. Theres plenty of that in this one but it all seems work a bit better. Theres a lineal flow in the storyline here, and as Newell says, Thanos has bit of depth to him. Like all bridal dictators he thinks what he's doing is for the greater good.

Not that theres huge depth - this is just a 'brutal destroyer of planets and galaxies comes for Earth and must be stopped' tale after all. This must have been a dream run for the actors in the MCU because with so many 'characters' involved in this 2+hour effort they only each get a few scenes really. And they get to do it all again next year (yes, already shot, I know) for the conclusion in Part 2. Strangely enough it was the Gardians of the Galaxy cast I found odd in this film but given Gamora's relationship to Thanos I guess they had to be. It's just weird watching a little racoon trying to kick ass. At last Groot is getting a bit bigger.

Loved it. Loved the amalgamation of story lines, loved the plot, loved the characters. Infinity War was always going to be a massive undertaking - the hype, alone, set the bar incredibly high. But I really think that they delivered a good story with some dark twists, and a healthy dose of humor that we have all come to expect from this franchise. Definitely worth a repeat viewing.

I love superhero movies, so I was probably never going to hate this movie. It wasn't my favorite Marvel film, but it wasn't my least. I found it entertaining, and I liked the ending. My main criticism was that it felt a bit long considering most of the movie was a string of fight scenes.

We loved it from start to finish, a few surprises had us on our seats. Cliffhanger was made....We are huge fans of the Marvel comics & Movies. Don't want to spoil anything for anyone but ... the credits did tell all what's coming.... Chick Power ! Can't wait till Part 2 comes.

The movie has huge and complex range of effects and performances. Tony stark, all of the guardians crew, Thor, and many others are very effective. But I feel that Thanos, and I blame the CGI acting was rubbery and not really believable to me. I love the marvel films but I need to believe the core figures , and in the case of Thanos trying to save the world by control and indifference to life, very interesting but he didn’t convince me at all that he was dangerous in his belief, an idealistic hitler purifying the world. I’m interested to see what happens but will have to look past the villain..

Well, I'm a big fan of the franchise, but to be honest much like either of the new Star Wars films this was yet another 'epic' movie that just failed to impress the moment the end credits rolled. Yes, it pulled in virtually every character thus far from the MCU, but for me, that was partly the problem. It romps from once scene to the next with aplomb, but all you get is a few glib lines of dialogue per superhero, then it's on to the next scene. To me, it simply lacked depth from any of the characters, and never really settled down for long enough to draw me in or make me actually care what was going to happen next.

A thoroughly entertaining ride, for sure, but ultimately I walked out of the cinema wishing I'd gone to an earlier showing - because my overriding feeling was that it didn't warrant getting home well after midnight, something I had no qualms about before I went in. And that's got to say something.

There was some disillusionment in the group I went to see this with and I find that a little unbelievable. Some found the pacing not to their liking or too jumpy, a dial down on the humour and there was some ribbing on the final act. With so many characters to follow around in the story, the Russos have gone for a Game of Thrones-esque structure and that's just fine. New and old character pairings are comedic gold as has always been in Avengers tradition. Infinity War is just, above all, an immensely fun movie that manages to keep things fresh even after ten years worth of movies in the Marvel universe. MVP: Josh Brolin.